PG&E Powers up with Renewable Energy

The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) received approval from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) for up to 387 megawatts of clean, renewable power—enough power to serve more than 350,000 PG&E electric customers.

“We are thrilled about these five renewable power projects and look forward to them contributing to PG&E’s diverse energy portfolio, which has one of the lowest rates of air emissions in the country,” said Fong Wan, vice president of energy procurement.

PG&E currently supplies more than 12 percent of its customer load from renewable resources that qualify under California’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) program. In total, about 50 percent of the power that PG&E delivers to its customers comes from generating resources that emit no carbon dioxide.

Since PG&E began its RPS program, it has entered into contracts for nearly 1,100-megawatts of renewable energy—wind, geothermal, biomass and hydro resources—enough power to serve more than 800,000 customers. California’s RPS Program requires each investor-owned utility to increase its procurement of eligible renewable-generating resources by 1 percent of load per year to achieve a goal of 20 percent. The RPS program was passed by the legislature and is managed by the CPUC and California Energy Commission. EC